Week 21: A lot to do, being outdoors, video calls, banking, attitude, and what I read and watched
Intense weeks with a lot of in-, through- and output
Crazy full weeks
There are so many things going on right now. It is hard to prioritize and have enough time to reflect and do meta things like writing this newsletter. Luckily most of the topics are positive and are around fun raising rounds in our APX portfolio. This, in combination with my rule to spend the weekends with my family not working, its hard to organize. I am confident this will turn into more normal days over the next few workdays.
The past weeks were intense, and with everything opening up and full vaccination getting closer, there should be time for some more optimism. I did not even have the time to enjoy the new, more open version of Berlin I am living in right now.
Being outdoors around the corner: Botanical Garden
I am a proud member of the “Freunde des Botanischen Gartens und Botanischen Museums Berlin-Dahlem e.V.” since a few days. The botanical garden is around the corner from where I live, and I figured that I could go there whenever I want without registering for a slot as a member of the supporters club. This will be helpful for walking calls in the future.
Video call quality and setup
I guess you are in quite a lot of video calls as well. And I think this will hopefully be a significant part of my life in the future as well, where I dream of having a new balance of traveling, meeting “real people,” and having virtual meetings and events. My level of tolerance is getting lower and lower: the quality of video participation.
This goes for me and also for the people I talk to. My personal level of “good enough” for sound and video quality has risen over the past months. When we spend so much time with each other in virtual formats, I think everyone should have proper sound and video quality by now. Especially when participating in virtual events, I do not understand how one would do this without a decent microphone or picture quality.
I think it is not expensive to get a decent microphone, learn the basics of setting up your video conferencing, like some basics of light and camera angles. I am constantly optimizing my setup, and right now, I like this best:
Sure SM7B microphone with a Scarlett audio interface for sound
A Blackmagic Atem Mini and one Sony camera with “clean” HDMI output as a camera.
This setup works with all video conferencing setups I use, and when I want to present something, I usually use mmhmm to share slides or share screens of my devices.
Alternatively, I use my Macbook and its microphones and webcam in a quiet and muffled room. (sometimes a car is a good option if you happen to have one)
Taxes and Banking
I had a hilarious banking experience over the past few weeks. I am doing my taxes for my personal holding company. This includes giving the bank statements to my tax consultant. There are two banks I am working with. A quite new digital bank and a very traditional Berlin Bank. With the digital bank, it took 10 minutes to generate the documents and share them.
With the traditional bank, a “Kafkaesque” situation started. Disclaimer: I am super happy my bank is very safe and has many safety measures in place. And since I managed to get it done in the end, everything is working again. But it was quite a ride:
I could not log in to my account because I had switched my mobile phone and the secure pin app had to be activated again. I called the bank’s hotline and learned that I could not ask for a new activation letter over the phone but had to go to a bank branch. I checked where the next branch is, how the opening hours during lockdown are, blocked an hour in my calendar, and walked there only to find out that it was closed entirely during the lockdown. I called the hotline again to learn that they did not know the opening hours of the individual branches. So I had to try another one. I did. It was closed. A few days later I tried another branch which was also closed.
My tax consultant kept asking me for the documents since they are needed to close the books, and I tried to hotline again to make an appointment. My idea was that if I have an appointment, I can be sure the branch is actually open. Luckily the friendly person on the phone asked me for a reason for my visit, and I told her that I need to activate my Tan generator. After 5 seconds, she said: “As you are calling me from your old cellphone number: Why don’t I activate your app with an activation message over the phone?” I liked this idea and told her that my inquiry to do exactly this a few days ago was impossible for a colleague of hers. Nevertheless: she activated my online banking access again.
When I was able to log in again, I learned that my money was still there (good), but all transactions were gone (disturbing). I called the support line again, and it took them 3 days to “find” them. Then, finally, two weeks after my first try and a few hours of work later, I was able to download the data I needed.
It is tough for a bank that usually works with customers who walk into branches to digitize itself. It seems to be really hard to work with legacy systems that need to be integrated into new interfaces. The security systems seem good but are also quite complex. In the end, I switched the “send me my statements by mail” option again, so I have a dead tree and ink versions I can share with my tax accountant, and I will continue to use the challenger bank as my main bank to make small transactions.
Attitude: How can I help you? And I assume you can think.
We are discussing our attitude at APX. We love founders, and we obviously want to support our portfolio companies as much as possible. That’s why we have a “how can I help you?” attitude. I think this is super helpful as an investor. Over the past few weeks, we had some interactions with founders where we had to add: “And I expect you to bring your own brain and do your part as well.”. As founders, I think you should take support and shared experiences and maybe even advice, but I also think you need to build your own company yourself. Make your own decisions, decide whom you want to work with, what your strategy and tactic are, and do your tasks and job.
What I read and watched:
A Complete Guide to Tagging for Personal Knowledge Management - Forte Labs
Redd.plus - Work on climate change
I did my yearly assessment of my family’s climate footprint and offset it (multiple times) with leaders for climate action, Plan3t, and atmosfair.
Played around with Our World in Data
I learned a bit about how Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble” was mixed
I had a nerd attack learning how to prepare stir fry
And I fell asleep to this video about a go-anywhere explorer boat. This had two consequences: I dreamt of traveling on a go-anywhere explorer boat (nice), and since the TV I fell asleep in front of was on autoplay, I get a lot of boat video recommendations now.
I hope you enjoy reading the newsletter and following some of the links.
Have a great weekend and week!
Cheers from Berlin
Joerg